Time where somebody decides that Honesty Is the Best Policy and that telling the truth won't ruin their plans in Live-Action TV series.
- In the pilot episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Agent Coulson decides to earn the trust of Skye, resident anti-government hacker activist, by injecting his fellow Agent, Ward, with a truth serum and locking them in an interrogation room. Subverted when it later turns out S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn't have a truth serum at all; it's left ambiguous as to how much of what Ward revealed while pretending to be under its effects was actually true and what was made up.
- The Dukes of Hazzard, Twisted in Season 4's "Nothing But the Truth." Boss Hogg sits on a syringe containing truth serum, and finds that honesty being the best policy could cost him his marriage (he lets slip he doesn't really love Lulu) and his life (when he reveals the truth behind one of his schemes to the authorities and names names).
- In Firefly, Saffron's husband walks in on her and Mal, while she has a gun pointed at Mal.Saffron: Durran, this isn't what it looks like.
Mal: Unless it looks like we're stealing your priceless Lassiter, 'cause, that's what we're doin'. Don't ask me 'bout the gun, though, 'cause that's new.
Durran: Well, I appreciate your honesty. Not, you know, a lot, but... - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1981) has a reversal of the Ape Court joke in the Folklore category. The Vogon Captain reads his tortuously bad poetry to the captured heroes (who he previously threatened to have spaced) and asks them what they think of it. The two go at length about how good it is, noting the clever use of made-up poetry conventions. Once they're done, the Captain says they were completely wrong, and that his poetry being tortuously bad was actually his intent, to put other people in same bad mood that he's in.
- The Hogan Family, In "Leave It To Willie," what Willie thinks will bail him out of serious trouble. After all, all you have to do is confess that you stole your father's convertible to go out for a joy ride (all while you're 12 years old and nowhere near having a driver's license), crash the car into a parked car and cause major damage, flee the scene even though there was an eyewitness to the incident, try to cover up the damage, and allow your big brother to take the blame ... and you'll get off scot free. Not so ... Willie's mother, Valerie, tells him that by not coming clean when he was asked, he lied by omission ... claiming he did not know anything about the accident that she just accused David of. So in essence, the aesop becomes, "Honesty is the best policy when you are asked the first time, even when the truth is difficult and you could face severe consequences anyway."
- JAG: This trope is a recurring theme on the show and is brought up in several episodes. The resolution of the eight season episode "Need to Know" is a good case in point. However, the twist is that there should be honesty among the Americans, but maintaining a false facade towards the others is okay.
- In the second episode of Resident Alien, Dr. Vanderspeigle manages to win over a cranky old patient by bluntly informing him that he'll be dead by the end of the year. The patient had become embittered toward Vanderspeigle's predecessor because he suspected that the doctor's warnings were just an attempt to trick him into dieting when he knew that he was getting so old that he'd be dead soon anyway.
- In the television adaptation of the James Clavell's novel Shogun the Jesuit Fr. Alvito reports to Fr. Carlo Dell’Aqua that Blackthorne had told Lord Torananga about the Treaty of Zaragoza which divided up newly discovered lands between Spain and Portugal. Alvito further says that Toranaga asked him if such a thing existed. Alvito confirmed to Toranaga that the treaty existed, which upset the Portugese Captain Ferriera who complained that confessing about the treaty to the Japanese was endangering all their efforts. Both Dell'Aqua and Alvito countered that to lie to the Japanese would have worse consequences than admitting the truth and could drive a wedge between Toranaga and the Jesuits if the lie was uncovered.
